Doctor Who's 50th Anniversary

Finally watched "The Day of the Doctor," which marks Doctor Who's fiftieth anniversary, and it was awesome! (SPOILERS) When MY Doctor, the one I grew up with, the Fourth Doctor, showed up, it actually made me cry! Tom Baker's surprise appearance was like opening gifts on Christmas morning or seeing Santa Claus as a kid!

Google even got in on Doctor Who's 50th Anniversary with their own little game and that was awesome too!

The 11th Doctor meets the mysterious 'curator' who appears to be aware that he resembles an older version of the Fourth Doctor.

Merry Christmas from Berlin!

My dear old friend Jimmy from Taiwan cooked wonderful Chinese food for our Christmas dinner in Berlin and I made many new friends!  Thank you Jimmy and Merry Christmas to all!

an ironic "Guardian Christmas screensaver" by Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei's ironic homage to Chinese "door god prints" to be used as a screensaver.  Like the "door god prints," that are traditionally hung on doors in China to ward off evil, this "Guardian Christmas screensaver," put on your computer, is supposed to "ward off the evil river crabs" ( "river crabs" is internet slang created by Chinese netizens in reference to Internet censorship or the other censorship of China. In Chinese Mandarin, the word "River crab" (河蟹), which originally means Chinese mitten crab, sounds similar to "Harmonious/Harmonize/Harmonization" (Chinese: 和谐) in the word "Harmonious society" (和谐社会), Chinese leader Hu Jintao's signature ideology).

Also pictured are the "Grass Mud Horses" or Cǎonímǎ (草泥马), is a Chinese Internet meme widely used as a form of symbolic defiance of the widespread Internet censorship in China. It is a play on the Mandarin language words Cǎonímǎ (肏你妈) (I actually can't tell you what that means in English or it sets off the censorship blockers here in Kuwait! but if you click on the links it is easy to see), and is one of the so-called 10 mythical creatures created in a hoax article on Baidu Baike in early 2009 whose names form obscene puns. It has become an Internet chat forum cult phenomenon in China and has garnered world-wide press attention, with videos, cartoons and merchandise of the animal (which is said to resemble the alpaca), having appeared.

MERRY CHRISTMAS from Kuwait!

These fine Santa helpers greeted me when I left my apartment building early this morning on Christmas Day, December 25th, 2011 in Salmiya, Kuwait.  Not to make fun of them at all, these Bangladeshi street cleaners work hard for very very little pay but were all smiles this morning and were so happy that I was taking their photo.  THANK you for all your hard work and MERRY CHRISTMAS  to ALL!!!

HAPPY WINTER SOLSTICE EVERYONE!

HAPPY WINTER SOLSTICE EVERYONE!

Japanese Sun goddess Amaterasu emerging from a cave.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Christmas at the Aya Sophia...

We spent the whole day at the Aya Sofia, better known in the West as the Hagia Sophia. If you have to be away from family on Christmas... I could think of no better way to spend the day... it is beyond words ( so I took 546 photos, haha!)...